1914: Panel hears about corporate dominance

A week of hearings brought revelations and old news to a congressional panel in Trinidad, according to The Pueblo Chieftain during the week of Feb. 23, 1914.

CHIEFTAIN PHOTO/FILE
This artist rendition of convicted murderer John DiFelice was published to illustrate phrenology.

Deputy District Attorney J.M. Hendrick of Las Animas County complained to the panel that the militia had interfered with several civil law cases since they were mobilized.

Several witnesses testified to the congressmen that the coal companies had treated Las Animas and Huerfano counties as their corporate fiefdoms and were the de facto law there. Families were held in peonage by the companies and miners would not return to their work sites if they had trouble because they feared beatings.

“Slav” miner Proko Buraka was set to testify that union officials had told him to lie to the panel, but Buraka, when queried by a CF&I lawyer, paused for several minutes, looked out at the people in the room and said “No,” he had never been asked to fabricate a story. The paper called it the most dramatic moment of the hearings.